To not invite DM for Xmas knowing she's alone with MH illness

[SimplyPie]

I don't know what to do.
DM is 76.
Lives alone.
Zero friends - can't maintain healthy relationships due to lack of boundaries or understanding about how her behaviour impacts on others.
Lifelong mental illness which is untreated as she won't engage with mental health services or her GP. The reason for her refusing to engage is due to the mental illness itself.
Mixture of unstable PD, lifelong depression, clinical anxiety, PTSD, self harm, self neglect, emotional dysregulation, ASD and ADHD.
Refuses medication and refuses therapy - lifelong refusal.
Her MI caused a caused a difficult childhood for DB and me and I carry this with me through my adulthood.
She raised us as a single parent.
DB is now NC with DM for his own MH protection and he aportions a lot of blame on her for his own depression and anxiety.
All of our extended family are NC with DM due to the emotional difficulties and challenges she presents in trying to maintain a long standing relationship.
Christmas is a huge MH trigger for her.
We have her to stay for a few days over Christmas and it is very hard work.
She is an emotional rollercoaster between being irritable, snapping at me and DH, talking in a stream of consciousness about her ongoing difficulties, devastation about not seeing DB and his children at Christmas anymore, crying, desperately wanting to spend every waking minute with my DC over Christmas on an emotional level whilst at the same time showing a complete lack of engagement with them on a demonstratable level, being non stop highly stressed, anxious, zero ability to sit through a kids Christmas movie with them or play a game with them, too distracted to get through a conversation with - she can't keep track of anything I try to talk to her about, and physically as unhelpful towards the general busyness of Christmas as it's possible to be. Sits there for entire days not moving. Doesn't occur to her to pitch in and help.
It's just bloody hard work and I feel like crying at the thought of another Christmas like it.
When the DC were little they'd bounce around excitedly not noticing all this. But they're getting older now and are beginning to pick up on things.
The thing is DM isn't mentally unwell but lovely with it. She isn't vulnerable in the sense that she leaves you feeling like you want to look after her. She's verbally argumentative all the time. She's hostile. She never smiles. She's paranoid in a negative way. She's accusatory. She can start an attack of arguing out of nowhere. Her conversation just goes round and round in a negative spiral. Every word she utters is negative. Endless moaning. I can have a completely neutral expression on my face and she'll argue at me for looking at her in an angry way.
I must add that we really are nice to her. Buy all her favourite food. Adapt food and cooking to her liking. Abandon family activities that DH and DC and me enjoy because she doesn't want to do them. Tip toe around her endlessly changing mood. Buy her really thoughtful and lovely gifts. Turn down social offers we'd personally love to accept because she stays for days. Pick her up. Drive her home. We appease her on every level.
And then after it's all over, she'll spend days texting me about how she knows me and DH hate her but she only comes to stay so tbat she can see my DC who she regularly tells me are her only reason for living.
The older I'm getting the more she is impacting on my wellbeing. I'm pretty strong and I think I've been pretty emotionally resilient through my life, considering I've been raised by a mother who's been like tgis my whole life. But strangely, I feel more affected by her behaviour in my middle age now than I did in my 20s and 30s, even though it has now been much longer since I lived with her (I left home at 18 which I spent 2 decades being either cried at or argued at about, with her blaming me for abandonment). I don't quite understand why it's all affecting me more now at this age.
So......I can hear you all thinking dont invite her over then. But the alternative is she sits at home alone with the TV and a microwave meal, and despite how impossible she is to get along with, I know about her life traumas and I understand those traumas are the reason for her illness, and knowing that makes me feel like I'd spend the entire Christmas feeling such guilt that I wouldn't enjoy it anyway.
I have tried all my life to support and love her.
But I can feel my brain is beginning to change now, after the effects of all these years of dealing with this.
And I just want to say - I hate serious mental illness. I really truly hate it and all it's harmful, toxic, devastating repercussions.
I hate it. I feel defeated by it.😞

This has to stop. She is horrendously abusive. Don't subject yourself to it anymore. I would send a message saying "considering the hateful vitriol you can't stop sending me, and the impact that is clearly having on your mental health and most definitely my mental health, a break in communication is necessary for all concerned. I can't continue to be spoken to like this." This is not your fault. Your own children aren't getting the best of you because of her. That's not fair on anyone. Take a step back and take a breath and enjoy your Christmas without her. You deserve it. She has only herself to blame. You know without a shadow of a doubt she will make it horrific for you. Stop placating her or she'll never stop. Break generational traumas and give your kids the best Mum they can have this Christmas.

Hello OP, this sounds deep routed and you have been programmed over many years, to respond with anxiety, to try and fix it, as it is intolerable. But what you have learnt is you can't fix it. You will never do and be enough for her.
At this point I would strongly suggest some good therapy. This should help you untangle some of the emotional mess, and give you strength and confidence to make decisions that are right for you. To put boundaries in place that give you peace. Make an appointment today, you don't need to go every week, even twice a month would help. Lots of therapists have a discount if you are on a low income. Take the leap, for your own mental health.

God, OP. She is fucking awful.

If you apparently make her so sad and miserable you’d be kinder staying away forever, right?

It’s not you, it’s bloody her!

@SimplyPie
If this was how your DH behaved towards you would you tolerate it?
You wouldn't would you? But you have been tolerating being your mother's punchbag for decades.
If this was a partner doing this to you, we'd being advising you to contact your local domestic abuse services urgently.
You know that she chooses to abuse you and that this is abuse. You know that and you suffer it through and through. You have tried to help her but that isn't what she wants and it is thus unachievable.

My heart actually hurts for you because you hope that one day that you will get through to her and she will take those steps towards a better life. I'm going to shout this - SHE WILL NOT BECAUSE IT IS EASIER TO FOCUS ABUSE ON YOU (HER OWN DAUGHTER) THAN TO DO THE WORK IT TAKES TO MAKE HERSELF BETTER.

She DARVO's you constantly by turning back anything you say back onto you.

She refuses to take help or even consider doing the work back to normality.

She is self invested in constantly using the dark times in her life to justify her, quite honestly, deeply abusive behaviour.

She has had a poor start in life followed by awful things happening to/around her but many do and yet do not use this to justify this type of behaviour.

She has conditioned you to accept her behaviour and she has made you complicit in her abuse and poor MH so that you always think "I hate this but...poor mum....it's not her fault because she's been abused all her life" and you just accept it. It is hurting you so much that your own MH is damaged.

So why does she get to 'use' you to further abuse by abusing you so awfully?

Wow OP I could have written your latest update myself almost word for word but replace mental health with drinking. I cut contact around 5 years ago and it's only now that I can see how narcissistic she was, back then I used to feel guilty that I wasn't doing enough. Same thing with the kids too to the point that they were 'her grandchildren' rather than my children if you know what I mean. She always had to be the center of attention and the most important person in the room.. Anyway I don't think I want to go on about me I just wanted you to know I understood. I chose to focus on myself and my kids and it was impossible to do that with her in my life . I kindly suggest that you do the same. To be honest I wouldn't even bother trying to explain why to her as I doubt she will ever see your side. Please let us know how things go. I'll be thinking of you. How does it feel now you've written all this down and you have everyone saying you are not wrong? Does it make you see things clearer?

Just to add as well although I maybe speaking out of turn but I felt it needed saying. How sure are you that all these things happened to her in her early days to make her like this. I'm just saying it as my mum made up abuse after my grandfather died, told us once she had 6 months to live and then denied everything saying it as well as a lot of other things and lied about having cancer. It's not beyond the realms of a narcissist person to make things up for sympathy/control. Just something maybe to think about

What advice would you give to somone who's experiencing the same?

There's so much going on with her that you'll never be able to improve the situation; only she can do that.

My partner was the scapegoat in his family for his mother and even his siblings joined in, but not his father, although he was always too cowardly to tackle the situation. He decided to go no contact about 5 years ago, after years of trying to appease her. He's very glad he doesn't have to cope with her anymore.

Set yourself free. Nobody has the right to treat you like this, no one. No matter the relationship or the reasons, there are no excuses and you do not deserve abuse. Block her and start counselling.

Your mother lists all the things that she hates about you and then complains that she doesn't see you more often. It reminds me of the joke about two Jewish ladies eating lunch in a restaurant. One says, 'the food in here is absolutely terrible; and the other one says 'yes I know, and such small portions'.

If you are so awful, you would be doing her a favour as well as yourself by not seeing her at all. It is the only way you will ever find peace. She is totally malevolent, the polar opposite of a good and kind mother.

Her venomous outpourings and her assassination of your character are making you ill. Please protect yourself by cutting contact and blocking her. She isn't a safe person to be around your children even though she isn't directly horrible to them.

Wow, I'm surprised you still have any kind of relationship with her tbh. No wonder your DB doesn't. Who would want to put up with that?

It's not your fault she hasn't made a life for herself and that is not your responsibility.

You've done nothing wrong.

I would simply message her saying you're not being treated like this anymore and if she can't be civil to you then she's not welcome.

Ignore all the "it's your fault" nonsense- she's just looking for excuses as she doesn't really want to bother making a life for herself. That's her choice. If she threatens suicide I would call professionals. It's simply a manipulative tactic.

You need to start "training" her to behave if you like, by sticking to boundaries and not accepting her bad behaviour.

Start now and good luck.

You have my every sympathy - I have walked in your shoes. My mantra became "whatever you do will never be good enough" which released me to then do whatever I wanted to, whatever I was prepared to do - but no more. I had all sorts of rules to try and claw back control- not answering the phone after 6pm (because she'd be drunk), not acknowledging the suicide threat messages or long goodbye ones, never being alone in a room with her - none of them solved anything because by then there was no solution. The effect on my children and having to set up a whole other set of rules to stop her hurting them was my end point. I had to sit down and say no, you won't be seeing them for a while. And she actually had a moment of self realisation about that and didn't rail against it. I think I saw her once more after that before she died. I know it wasn't my fault. Whatever I did would never have been enough.

Honestly life is too short for this rubbish. Carry on being a devoted mum and leave your mum to it. You may be related but no one has to put up with this level of abuse because of genetics. Time for a change!

You poor thing. This must be devastating. 🥺

This is truly awful OP. I've no pearls of wisdom to offer that anyone else hasn't already done. All I can say is that your wicked mother abused you as a child and continues to do so. She will not stop... EVER. She will destroy you if she can because as far as she is concerned, you are the cause of them and that simply isn't true. Why on earth would she want to see you if you was the cause of the misery in her life? Nobody like this can be cured or changed but you can change how you deal with her (or more accurately don't). I wish you well.

You're not at fault, she is.
You're not causing her issues, she is.
Equally, you cannot change her but you can change you. Seriously look at creating the mental barrier, disengage and grey rock her.
Have a long time goal (e.g. non contact in 6 mth/a year) and short term steps, don't tell her what you are doing and expect stress from her along the way. Teach yourself and support yourself to back away. Seek support from your wider family and friends.

Thank you everybody.
I can't believe how nice you're all being to me, and how supportive you're all being. I didn't expect it.
It's funny, even reading through all your replies, I can read how passionately you are all trying to convey your messages to me, yet still there's a voice in my head saying "They are all being nice but they don't realise that the problem is me, it's all my fault, I have upset her again." Even though I can hear what you're all saying. It's kind of hard to explain and I don't understand it.
I am really touched by the compassion you are all showing to me, a stranger on the internet who you've never met and will never meet. That you've taken time out of your day to type a message to me. Thank you. It's very humbling and makes me feel quite emotional, as I've lived my life assuming nobody cares about my emotions or how I feel. I'm not saying that's true, I'm just saying that assuming people aren't invested or interested in me is my default setting.
So it's been quite a huge thing for me to read all these messages of support.
I tell nobody in real life except DH, and he's got to the point long ago of not being able to deal with or tolerate her anymore. And she loathes him. My God does she loathe DH. So I can't talk to him about her anymore because he's done with her.
Whenever I have defended DH when she's arguing at me about how much she hates him because she didn't like the way he looked at her, or spoke to her, even though I was in the room and there was nothing wrong with the way he looked at or spoke to her (she lies to insane levels, she will literally twist something that someone said to make it sound completely different, or else just abject lies), she starts screaming at me "YOU ALWAYS TAKE HIS FUCKING SIDE AGAINST ME! YOU ALWAYS TAKE EVERYONE ELSE'S SIDE AGAINST ME!! RAHHHH!!!"
But then she'll buy me all these nice presents. And send nice cards with nice words written inside through the post. And texts with love heart emojis and doves and rainbows. And she does sometimes (not often) tell me she loves me. All in between raging at me and hating me.
Which completely and utterly messes with my head. The mass contradictions. It completely confuses my brain.
I'm processing all your advice right now. I'm a careful, cautious person and I will think long and deep over the coming weeks about all of your words of advice and will re-read all your messages.
Right now, I'm in brain overload and I can feel my brain is kind of shutting down. It's a really weird feeling, I can actually physically feel my brain closing down. I feel detached and disconnected, like I'm not really inside my body right now. It's so hard to explain in words.
In the meantime, I've still blocked her.
And I have decided Christmas will be just me, DH and DC. I feel sad in the face of all the Christmas marketing showing all these extended happy families together. I don't have that and I'm worrying a lot about my DC not having it either.
I'm already NC with my DF, he left us when I was 3, he saw me once a fortnight and then I never saw him again after I turned 14. He couldn't be less interested in me if he tried.
None of my aunts, uncles, cousins know me because none of them wanted any contact with DM when I was growing up.
So it's a lot to go NC with DM.
Anyway, again, thank you all.❤

You are so brave.
Going NC is protecting your children.
Your extended family had the right idea.
I really feel for your husband too, it must be awful to have someone so toxic in your home terrorising your wife.

Massive huge enormous hugs. You are doing so well!! That voice in your head - it's been programmed by years of her abuse to think that way. It'll take time to fully accept that actually it's not you - it's her. In the meantime, treat yourself very gently. Lots of treats for yourself, lots of reminding yourself of all your good points, and lots of taking deep breaths and relaxing. You're in fight or flight mode and it'll take time to settle from that.

No more domestic terrorism. If your partner behaved like that you would have divorced them years ago. You don’t need to put up with this BS. You are a grown adult now and you can decide what is acceptable.
Have you ever had counselling / therapy? There is a LOT to talk about. You may have an Employee Assistance Programme at your work - can be v helpful!

Youre doing brilliantly. Youre kind of inspiring me.
Just a warning, if youre only now coming to terms with exactly how bad its always been- you might enter a mourning period where you feel sad for everything youve been subjected to and had to put up with. This might make you want to contact her and try to make things up- to make everything better. Try to give yourself a little bit longer to heal, because if you get back in touch with her youll need much stronger boundaries and a much tougher skin.

It doesn't have to be no contact forever, but you do need a way to reset the relationship so that it doesn't destroy your mental health.

You're doing this.

So agree.
If this was your husband, you would be offered a refuge by a domestic abuse chatity, undoubtedly.

Also agree that this abuse of you has institutionalised you.

You have had it drilled in your entire life that you are wrong.

But your mother is a total horror.
Many many people have shit childhoods and don't abuse their children as you have.

We are here for you.

I honestly believe that her death would be a blessed release for her as well as you.

That's a bit harsh. The op's dm clearly has significant mental health and behavioural issues. People like this are obviously not easy to deal with but what the op has to do is damage limitation, take control. They have her for a few days at Christmas, why? She lives locally enough she turns up unannounced.
The op should invite her for Christmas lunch keep the conversation on track then say they are off to the inlaws.

Control and boundaries are not easy after a lifetime of emotional manipulation but if the op can implement some strategies it will be the way forward

You should be so proud of yourself.

Everything you're describing feeling right now is normal - it doesn't feel that way, but it's par for the course and it will ease with time.

The nice presents and cards and texts are designed to fuck with your head; it's love-bombing to create a sense of obligation and guilt if you don't toe the line.

I'm really proud of you. Our Christmases are just DH, DD and I. Is it different to how I envisioned adult Christmases as a child? Totally! Is it a million times better than spending Christmas with either of my awful parents? Absolutely.

No. The OP shouldn't invite her at all. The OP doesn't have to do damage limitation.

Mental health and behavioural issues are not a free pass to harm other people, and the OP doesn't have to accept one second of that from anyone, especially at Christmas.

Implementing control and boundaries with someone who behaves the way OP's mother does will not help the situation. It gives new buttons to push and new things to complain and guilt trip about and a reason for the behaviour to escalate, because they see someone else putting up boundaries as a challenge.

Extremely low, preferably no contact is the way to go with people like this.